Chocolate Custard with Salt Flakes and Olive Oil

This is not a normal dessert. It is highly unusual and surprising and really might quite possibly be one of the most remarkable things you’ll ever try. My wife and I were strongly encouraged to give it a try at a lovely tapas place called Tapas 24 in Barcelona a couple of years ago, and since then we’ve been blown away by the taste and I’ve almost obsessively tried to recreate it at home since. I don’t quite remember exactly how the original tasted but this here is a worthy imitation. Since the dish is so simple, it’s all about the ingredients here; excellent quality chocolate and milk, but most importantly, the olive oil needs to be amazing. This is a simple dessert that can definitely wow, so have a look at the recipe after the jump.

Makes about six servings of three quenelles:

For the custard:

100g of excellent quality dark chocolate about 70% cocoa

2 large egg yolks

2 tbsp of caster sugar

1/2 cup of full cream milk

2/3 cup of cream

In a small pot over a high heat, combine the milk and cream and bring right up to a boil. While the dairy comes warms up, place the yolks in a bowl with the sugar and whisk until creamy and fluffy. Make sure the dairy doesn’t boil, and very slowly and gradually add the dairy to the eggs in a steady stream while stirring slowly and constantly. Once the eggs, sugar and dairy are combined, return to the pot and reduce the heat to medium and whisk for a couple of minutes until the mixture starts to thicken.

Using a knife, chop the chocolate finely and place in a bowl, and once the egg-dairy mixture has thickened a bit, pour over the chocolate and allow the chocolate to melt alone for half a minute, before stirring a couple of times with a wooden spoon to allow to uniformly combine. Place in the fridge to thicken for at least four hours, but take out of the fridge about 20min before serving.

For the bread croutons

Cut the crust off a slice of country bread that is no more than about 1cm thick. Roll with a rolling pin until as flat as possible and then cut into any desired shape. Spread lots of butter over each shard and place in grill for a couple of minutes until they’re nice and crispy.

To plate:

Make tsp quenelles of the chocolate, and drizzle each with about 1 tbsp of excellent extra virgin olive oil and then sprinkle with a few salt flakes. Add the bread croutons to give the dessert come texture.